A ton of academia is based on putting out slop into not so well-read journals and crossing fingers it passes some dead-exhausted postdoc TA's peer review.
1,133 karma · joined February 2, 2019
https://www.racunalniski-muzej.si/en/exhibitions/exhibition-...
I really like how the schism between basic literacy, literary culture and the study of literature is examined, though. I was always under the impression, as an engineer, that being able to retrieve needed information from a printed text was tremendously important, until I trained myself in this skill to the point where I have trouble reading linear pieces of fiction (Not to mention nonlinear ones. I am trying to chug through Tropic of Cancer with English being my second language. I'm failing at a consistent and periodic pace). I imagine that now, grammar-school me would be consistently able to out-read me in an "English literature class" kind of way, while I would beat him at engineering-focused knowledge retrieval even without ChatGPT.
> When commentators lament that students “can’t read,” what they often mean (though never specify) is that students are not engaging in texts in ways that resemble the interpretive practices valued within literary studies. That’s why we should ask whether they are literate in a particular discourse instead of asking if they are literate full stop.
This why I find the article insightful. I appreciate how this severance between studying literature and being literate appears to contain the issue to a specific sub-field of The Artist Formerly Know As The Literacy Crisis, but I really am not sure how this is useful to anyone looking to improve the state of things. Even the author himself says that while "[even if he thinks] histrionic op-ed writers in The Atlantic misdiagnose an erosion of literary culture as mass illiteracy doesn’t mean I’m okay with it." I find this somewhat hollow still, because redirecting overarching societal shifts into the context of a very specific sub-field of a science usually just works to sweep it under the carpet.
I have experienced a bunch of well-trained and passionate teachers, which resulted in me obtaining a decent grasp at literature in secondary school. Conversely, a lot of my peers did not and most of the graduates after them did not as well. They all exhibit signs of declining basic literacy (to the point of not being able to read washing machine instructions without LLM assistance). I think that bad grades in literary studies are a decent predictor of bad basic literacy, especially 5 years down the line. And, we have seen a lot of old teachers retiring where I live, with their replacements being just plain dumber, if not stupid outright. I suppose the reason is that undergrads enrolling in paedagogic courses here are mostly people that couldn't get in literally anywhere else (and immigrants seeking fraudulent student visas to work as delivery drivers).
Fixing the infrastructure as the conclusion suggests would do well to maintain the already-reading and curious-to-read students, but would do little to get them interested in it. We desperately need teachers that imprint a sense of nobility or worthiness to the practice of literary culture/study and only then the infrastructure will prove itself useful once the coming generations realize there must be some wealth in making use of it, get them influenced, so to speak.
1. It seems that most of the evil here is concentrated among the liberal right and liberal left. Both far right AfD types and the left are against this.
2. A lot of positions, when clarified, just want to keep the (bad) status quo of CC1.0, while opposing 2.0, which was the much more totalitarian one. This also includes the crucial shadow rapporteurs.
This is still not good, but unless I've understood something very wrongly here, this isn't the same as just pushing the worst version of chat control 2.0 through.
Funny how it's become completely the opposite nowadays.
It seems to me that knowledge doesn't always imply competence, but the lack of knowledge often very well explains incompetence. And, since the LLM is replacing the competence part without imprinting any knowledge on the one that wields it, it generates a lot of competent imbeciles that pass interviews and appear as though they not only do things, but know things as well. And once you reach that critical mass, sheeeeesh
1. Culturally important experiences lean towards the prescriptive side. You enter, you are observing or being challenged in something, and it leaves an imprint on you. It is usually a bit discomforting in an exciting way that transforms a part of you in a infinitesimally small, but distinct and permanent way.
2. The unimportant experience is the conforming one, where zero friction is the preferred method of interaction, but it is universally loved in the way high-fructose corn syrup is; it's an economically sound decision to at least try and profit from it.
The switching behavior they see could just be an electron hopping on and off a quantum dot, perhaps one formed incidentally by part of the wirelike region, Legg says. “This is exactly what you could get from a quantum dot.”
(not to excuse the Catholic church's crimes either, especially the brutal crimes of the NDH in WW2, and the Franco regime)
I could get inflammatory and say that functional members of society are being discriminated against in this way, or flip it around, stating that any disadvantage that requires you interacting with public services is systemically pushing you away from meaningful employment.
But for real now, people asking health-related questions is a huge trigger for AI safety measures. Does it only care about the vaccine part, or does it care about the hantavirus part? Maybe ask about the virus in general first, then ask about development...
The whole pivot around covert work is strange, though. What kind of "covert work" involves a taser and/or a bodycam on the person anyway? Wouldn't the mere physical presence of a bodycam (an Axon bodycam no less) signal something's off?